The Strange Career of the Public Option

摘要

For all the fury it has provoked on both sides of the health-care debate, it's easy to forget that the idea of a public option was something of an afterthought when presidential candidate Barack Obama first designed his health-care-reform plan. It didn't merit so much as a mention in the 3,636-word speech he gave laying out his vision on health care in May 2007, and it rarely came up in the primary and general-election battres that followed.